The Cru­cible anal­o­gy man­i­fests direct sub­stance in the vicious tweet­ing that occu­pies much of the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle arti­cle:

We note that the Har­vey Wein­stein case is sig­nif­i­cant not because of what Wein­stein appears to have done–with Oliv­er Stone’s caveat to be born in mind–but the tim­ing of the sur­fac­ing of alle­ga­tions which have been mount­ing for many years. (The cat­a­logu­ing of those appar­ent inci­dents as “oppo­si­tion research” has, in all prob­a­bil­i­ty, been going on for a long time.)

With the #MeToo phe­nom­e­non, in gen­er­al, there is a con­spic­u­ous lack of due process. What vet­ting of the charges is tak­ing place, oth­er than pub­lic rep­e­ti­tion via tweet? Of course, sex­u­al harass­ment gen­er­al­ly occurs with no wit­ness­es oth­er than the par­tic­i­pants, so it is the aggres­sor’s word ver­sus the vic­tim’s. Still, it is a sce­nario that is ripe for exploita­tion in the con­text of the four “B’s” of Amer­i­can pol­i­tics: Bul­lets, Bribes, Beds, and Black­mail.

A more cir­cum­spect approach would be to exam­ine this from a counter-intel­li­gence stand­point: What sort of polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions do the accusers have? Franken accusers Twee­den and Menz track to the right, and the pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence does NOT hold up: The Franken “grop­ing” pho­to is clear­ly a gag and the com­i­cal­ly bawdy/libidinous aes­thet­ic of the USO tour on which it occurred is obvi­ous from the oth­er pho­tos dis­played in the descrip­tion for FTR #998.

The pho­to of Menz and Franken at the Min­neso­ta State Fair (with Franken alleged­ly grop­ing the accuser) took place with the alleged vic­tim’s hus­band and father present. Menz and her hus­band vot­ed for Trump.

No sale.

Fur­ther­more, what seri­ous exam­i­na­tion of the accusers’ sit­u­a­tions is occur­ring? Did they have large sums of mon­ey wired to their bank accounts? After lend­ing momen­tum to the destruc­tion of promi­nent lib­er­als, is any­one tak­ing care to exam­ine if they then accept a lucra­tive arrange­ment (book or act­ing con­tract or well-paid cor­po­rate posi­tion) with a major com­mer­cial play­er?

We are not say­ing that any nec­es­sar­i­ly did, but is ANYONE doing due dili­gence on such mat­ters?

We make a num­ber of obser­va­tions in con­nec­tion with the Har­vey Wein­stein case:

1. Wein­stein hired Malia Oba­ma as an intern in ear­ly 2017.
2. Wein­stein was a major con­trib­u­tor to both Barack Oba­ma and Hillary Clin­ton (in 2016) among oth­er Democ­rats.
3. Assum­ing that the accu­sa­tions against Wein­stein are sub­stan­tive, and they may well be, it appears that “oppo­si­tion research” has been con­duct­ed on his sit­u­a­tion by the right for some time.
4. As Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt is alleged to have said: “In pol­i­tics, noth­ing hap­pens by acci­dent. If it hap­pens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
5. Psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare relies heav­i­ly on the cre­ation of asso­ci­a­tions to effect a goal: Bill Clin­ton’s remark­able indis­cre­tion with Moni­ka Lewin­sky was mid­wived by George H.W. Bush counter-ter­ror spe­cial­ist and Bush White House holdover Lin­da Tripp. One can pon­der the pos­si­bil­i­ty that high­light­ing asso­ci­a­tion between Wein­stein and Hillary was meant to cre­ate res­o­nance with the Moni­ka Lewin­sky case . . . A Bush admin­is­tra­tion appointee, Tripp (who, with the aid of Lucy Gold­berg, pre­cip­i­tat­ed the Lewin­sky imbroglio) had a high secu­ri­ty clear­ance, hav­ing worked for the Army’s Secret Intel­li­gence Com­mand at Fort Meade and for the Delta Force at Fort Bragg, N.C. (Note that the Delta Force func­tions in a counter-ter­ror­ist capac­i­ty. ‘Counter-ter­ror­ism’ is the rubric under which the Bush pri­vate intel­li­gence net­works oper­at­ed.) . . . ”
6. In the con­text of the above, the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the Weinstein/Malia Oba­ma link may have been intend­ed to broad­en the psy­cho­log­i­cal asso­ci­a­tion from Clinton/Lewinsky/Weinstein to Weinstein/Obama is one to be con­sid­ered.
7. One of the cen­tral fig­ures in the take­down of Har­vey Wein­stein was Ambra Bat­ti­lana.
8. Ms. Bat­ti­lana was also cen­tral to the take­down of P‑2 Lodge mem­ber and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni of Italy. Ms. Bat­ti­lana gets around. “In pol­i­tics, noth­ing hap­pens by acci­dent. If it hap­pens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
9. In an impor­tant detail not includ­ed in the audio file of the pro­gram itself (but in this descrip­tion), Ronan Far­row, who played a fun­da­men­tal role in break­ing the Har­vey Wein­stein case, has a back­ground in the State Depart­ment, spe­cial­iz­ing in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. Far­row is the son of Mia Far­row and Woody Allen.  ” . . . .  Post-law school: Lands a job at the State Depart­ment, as a spe­cial advi­sor focus­ing on con­flict in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. . . .”
10. Far­row con­tin­ued his work for State in 2011. ” . . . . 2011: Starts work­ing along­side Hillary Clin­ton with a lengthy title: Spe­cial Advi­sor to the Sec­re­tary of State for Glob­al Youth Issues and direc­tor of the State Department’s Glob­al Youth Issues office. . . .”

Anoth­er con­sid­er­a­tion to be weighed is the effect that some of the sex­u­al harass­ment imbroglios may be hav­ing on the well-doc­u­ment­ed, insid­i­ous con­cen­tra­tion of media own­er­ship. The Fox News sex­u­al harass­ment lit­i­ga­tion con­tributed to Mur­doch’s unload­ing of Fox to the Dis­ney Corp. Key Wein­stein cor­po­rate hold­ing Mira­max was obtained from Dis­ney in the ear­ly ’90s. Abi­gail Dis­ney, grand daugh­ter of Roy Dis­ney (broth­er of Walt and co-founder of the Dis­ney enter­tain­ment empire) is among the cast of char­ac­ters vying for stew­ard­ship of the Wein­stein enter­tain­ment prop­er­ties.

The pro­gram high­lights ele­ments promi­nent in the Wom­en’s March who are allied with Louis Far­rakhan. Like our dis­cus­sion of Glo­ria Steinem as (per­haps) the ulti­mate man­i­fes­ta­tion of weaponized fem­i­nism, this will be pre­sent­ed at greater length in the next pro­gram and the descrip­tion for it.

Fun­da­men­tal in the con­sid­er­a­tion of this very dif­fi­cult top­ic is the intel­li­gence/­counter-intel­li­gence sce­nario Mr. Emory pre­sent­ed in FTR #998: From the stand­point of counter-intel­li­gence analy­sis, the #MeToo phe­nom­e­non sig­nals a superb tac­tic for polit­i­cal destruc­tion: a) infil­trate a woman into the entourage or pro­fes­sion­al envi­ron­ment of a male politi­cian, media or busi­ness fig­ure tar­get­ed for destruc­tion; b) have her gain the trust of her polit­i­cal tar­get and his asso­ciates (the car­di­nal rule for a good dou­ble agent is “make your­self indis­pens­able to the effort”); c) after suf­fi­cient pas­sage of time, sur­face the alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment; d) IF the oppor­tu­ni­ty for actu­al sex play and/or flir­ta­tion presents itself, take advan­tage of it for lat­er use as political/rhetorical ammu­ni­tion; e) with accusers hav­ing the tac­ti­cal lux­u­ry of remain­ing anony­mous, the oper­a­tional tem­plate for a form of sex­u­al McCarthy­ism and the prece­dent-set­ting con­tem­po­rary man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sex­u­al Star Cham­ber is very real–the oper­a­tional sim­i­lar­i­ties between much of the #metoo move­ment and the Salem Witch Tri­als should not be lost on the per­se­ver­ing observ­er; f) prop­er vet­ting of the accu­sa­tions is absent in such a process; g) for a pub­lic fig­ure in the U.S., prov­ing delib­er­ate defama­tion (libel/slander) is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult and lit­i­ga­tion is very expensive–the mere sur­fac­ing of charges is enough to taint some­one for life and the exor­bi­tant expense of lit­i­ga­tion is pro­hib­i­tive for all but the wealth­i­est among us.

1. The pro­gram begins with a par­tial exam­i­na­tion of the Har­vey Wein­stein case.

Malia Oba­ma interned with Wein­stein recent­ly, although she was not involved in any of the scan­dalous activ­i­ties.

“Har­vey Wein­stein Nev­er Did Any­thing Prop­er with Intern, Malia Oba­ma Say Sources” by Erin Sil­va; Hol­ly­wod Life by Bon­nie Fuller; 10/11/2017.

For­mer first daugh­ter Malia Oba­ma, 19, com­plet­ed an intern­ship last sum­mer at Har­vey Wein­stein‘s com­pa­ny when she was 18, but the film pro­duc­er was on his “best behav­ior” around her, mul­ti­ple sources told Page Six TV. The media out­let also spoke with Har­vey on Oct. 10 and although Barack Oba­ma and Michelle Oba­ma issued a state­ment say­ing they are “dis­gust­ed” with the recent sex­u­al harass­ment alle­ga­tions against him, Har­vey refused to com­ment. . . .

. . . . Being a big time pro­duc­er in the spot­light has led Har­vey to get close to many peo­ple through­out his career and through his for­tune, he’s been able to donate large amounts of mon­ey to caus­es he believes in. For Barack’s 2012 re-elec­tion cam­paign, he donat­ed $680,000 and for Hillary Clin­ton‘s 2016 cam­paign, he helped raise up to $1.5 mil­lion.

2. More on the Har­vey Wein­stein case. One of the cen­tral fig­ures in the take­down of Har­vey Wein­stein was Ambra Bat­ti­lana.

“For Mogul, Brush with Police, Then No Charges” by Megan Twohey, James C. McKin­ley Jr., Al Bak­er and William K. Rash­baum; The New York Times; 10/16/2017; pp. A1-A18 of the West­ern Edi­tion.

 For decades, the film pro­duc­er Har­vey Wein­stein suc­ceed­ed in hid­ing from pub­lic view com­plaint after com­plaint of sex­u­al mis­con­duct against him. But on the evening of March 28, 2015. at a ren­dezvous at the TriBeCa Grand, his long­time pat­tern of cov­er-ups was com­ing to an end.

Meet­ing with him at the hotel was Ambra Bat­ti­lana, a 22-year-old mod­el from Italy, who had report­ed to the police the night before that Mr. Wein­stein had groped her dur­ing a busi­ness meet­ing. She was wear­ing a wire. As Ms. Bat­ti­lana asked Mr. Wein­stein he had touched her breasts at his office, under­cov­er police offi­cers mon­i­tored the exchange, eager to cap­ture his every word. . . .

  . . . . Lit­tle of what hap­pened in the case emerged before this month, when The New York Times report­ed claims of ram­pant sex­u­al harass­ment and unwant­ed touch­ing by Mr. Wein­stein, and The New York­er report­ed sex­u­al assault allegations—as well as the audio record­ing of the hotel encounter with Ms. Bat­ti­lana. . . .

. . . . Ms. Bat­ti­lana, a final­ist in the Miss Italy pageant, caught Mr. Wein­stein’s eye at a recep­tion for a show he was pro­duc­ing at Radio City Music Hall. He told her she looked like Mila Kunis and invit­ed her to bring her mod­el­ing port­fo­lio to his office at the Tribeca Film Cen­ter.

When she arrived at his office, an assis­tant showed her a pro­mo­tion­al video about his enter­tain­ment com­pa­ny before ush­er­ing her into his office, said Mark Jay Heller a lawyer who briefly rep­re­sent­ed the mod­el in the crim­i­nal case.

They took a seat on the couch, and Ms. Bat­ti­lana began show­ing Mr.Weinstein her mod­el­ing pho­tos on a tablet com­put­er as they dis­cussed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of her work­ing as a lin­gerie mod­el, accord­ing to the account she lat­er gave police. When the top­ic turned to whether her breasts looked real, Mr. Wein­stein lunged for­ward and grabbed them. She protest­ed and pushed his hands away, but Mr. Wein­stein was per­sis­tent, putting his hand up her skirt and ask­ing to kiss her, the police report says.

 Ms. Bat­ti­lana report­ed the encounter to police with­in hours of leav­ing Wein­stein’s office, and quick­ly detec­tives from the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit were brought into the inves­ti­ga­tion. The mod­el was going over the details of her alle­ga­tion with them when her phone rang. It was Mr. Wein­stein ask­ing to meet her for a drink, and the inves­ti­ga­tors seized the moment, whis­per­ing to her to accept an invi­ta­tion to to see him the fol­low­ing night a the bar of the TriBeCa Grand hotel. They would fit her with a record­ing device. . . .

3. Ms. Bat­ti­lana was also cen­tral to the take­down of P‑2 Lodge mem­ber and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni of Italy. Ms. Bat­ti­lana gets around. “In pol­i­tics, noth­ing hap­pens by acci­dent. If it hap­pens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

“Weinstein Accuser Helped Bring Down Disgraced Italian Premier’s Entourage” by Nicolas Medina Mora; Buzzfeed; 4/8/2015.

On Aug. 22, 2010, in the Ital­ian city of Milan, a famous tele­vi­sion anchor invit­ed two young mod­els to a din­ner par­ty at Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni’s coun­try vil­la. The mod­els, both of them bare­ly 18 years old, were flat­tered by the invi­ta­tion and enticed by the anchor’s promis­es that he could help them get jobs in Berlus­coni’s media empire.

But the wom­en’s excite­ment turned into hor­ror short­ly after they arrived at the vil­la, accord­ing to hun­dreds of pages of Ital­ian court records reviewed by Buz­zFeed News.

The mod­els report­ed they were repeat­ed­ly groped by the prime min­is­ter and his asso­ciates, the records show. They were pres­sured to join what appeared to be an incip­i­ent orgy. When they asked to leave, they were warned that their enter­tain­ment careers would be ruined.

The mod­els left any­way. Months lat­er, after the Ital­ian media began report­ing on the mas­sive pros­ti­tu­tion scan­dal that would end Berlus­coni’s polit­i­cal career, they decid­ed to come for­ward. . . .

. . . . Four years lat­er, one of the mod­els, Ambra Bat­ti­lana Gutier­rez, is involved in anoth­er high-pro­file sex­u­al assault case. This time, the pow­er­ful mogul being accused is Har­vey Wein­stein, the Hol­ly­wood king­mak­er who co-found­ed Mira­max and pro­duced Shake­speare in Love, Pulp Fic­tion, and oth­er crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed movies. . . .

1d. We reprint the com­ments from a trust­ed asso­ciate here, with a few minor edi­to­r­i­al changes.